Server Merges-

All in fun, be ~easy~ now. =)

We both play Kashuan. In fact we even both know each other and don't like each other.

Also Update: Apparently they are reworking the server merges. Hopefully I they offer a merge (merging two servers together or three in some cases maybe) , with a one time transfer to let people off the server who want off. That way established LS' can stick together more easily. Also people whom have went on trips will be on servers with their guilds( I have a friend taking a 2 month hiking trip and may be thrown on a random server if SE plans to keep going it's current route).

Aion had server merges early on as well. It's not necessarily guaranteed doom, but it's not a good sign.

Getting them back in 2.0 so its not really a big deal

here's a somewhat OT question for FFXIV players:

Is it still a decent time to jump into FFXIV new? I played beta and that was about as far as I got. I want to jump into something I can put some hours in and not buy 4 new games every month. Will XIV do it for me? Can I enjoy the game solo or with just a couple of people often?

I think I have a semi-unbiased opinion for you. Prior to ffxiv my only MMO experience was ffxi. I loved the game but did not get started until Xbox 360 release, so by that time it was very hard to get caught up (this was at 75 level cap and pre-abyssea when it was near impossible to do promys, or even get a party in the dunes). I am more of a casual gamer, with less time to spend grinding, so I ended up quitting that game.

I started ffxiv right before 1.18, so a lot of the early problems associated with the launch and the previous dev team were already taken care of. Since that time (August 2011), the game has improved frequently and impressively. With all the planned changes, it seems like this trend will continue. And if it doesn't, or it does end up folding, like a lot of people seem to want to predict for some reason, what did you lose? You run the chance of not liking any new game you start.

As to your specific question. The game is incredibly friendly to solo or small group play. You can solo a job to level cap with the aid of leves and quest related exp. Its obviously more efficient to level in a party, but the option is there. And if you do want to party, in my experience (on Trabia) its never that hard to find one. Small groups (2-4 players) can level, or tackle main story quests, or side quests, or even some dungeons. Pretty much the only thing that you need a party for is the HNM-type endgame content.

Yes, the amount of people playing the game right now is much lower than many other popular MMOs. But I find that the community is very involved, knowledgeable, and passionate about the game and the content we currently have. And since the game is still new, the community, and the content itself, is extremely friendly to new players. I hope this helps, and I hope you try it out.

Exactly what I hoped to hear. I started FFXI with the NA release, so I know what you speak of from its perspective. I quit it because of its demands, and while I may do endgame in another MMO again, I will never commit at the level I had once in FFXI, and the new FFXI has tarnished my view of it as nearly everything I worked for is now worthless in light of the new endgame (albeit less intensive, its new endgame I don't want to start out behind on). I'll give XIV a try, anyone have a server they don't mind me joining? : )

I cant tell you how many times I have said this since joining XIV, the whole thing. If we share similar veiws I think you will love the game. I hear many who are bored but personally I log on almost every day without any shortage on goals I want to complete before bed, and never finish half of them. I haven't had the time but to play a small bit of skyrim and ff13-2 on the side and still want to log on here instead.

As for servers we will be having merges soon so you could find yourself moved to another so chose whatever you like. I chose Besaid because I like to light roleplay, and see it. It makes my day to hear players squabble like npc's and adds a extra zing to the air in my personal opinion.

Thank you for that, and yeah, I came off about 200hrs in Skyrim. I'm ready for something that I can put 1000s of hours in, just not the drive to put 6-8hrs a day. I can't. I won't.

Thanks again and sorry for the derail.

Hehe a lot of people don't seem to realize SE is giving us back the servers (expanding them back..or w/e) for 2.0. This is just temporary so that people who choose to play until then can have more folks to play with :)

Game is good enough to try yes, it's best to just play it casually though, because you will find yourself bored if you decide to just burn through your classes. Too many people burn through their classes with the PL thing just to stand around AFK in the city with nothing to do.

Same with the primal fights, I know many that used to do Ifrit and Good King Mog nightly till they got their weapon(s) and are now simply burned out from doing them.


tl;dr version
Take your time with the game and you won't become bored.

This so much. People don't seem to think that leveling is at all an important aspect of MMOs anymore. It seems like such an odd mindset to me but apparently it's becoming the norm.

Any other opinions on the merging? :x

I welcome it, it's always nice to see new faces and make new friends. I am happy they've revoked the 1st method they were going to implement. I didn't want to lose my friends outside my linkshell that decided to go to a different server than the one I or the LS decides to go.

I'm on Fabul and I find myself bored a lot. Most of the time when I play theres very few people online so I can hardly find any Ifrit or Moogle groups. I usually craft for like 30 minutes and go crazy and log off to play skyrim or anything else.

Server consolidation will be nice because it will add more players to servers so maybe there will actually be people around to do something.

2.0 is going to be a fairly different (and hopefully better) game so who will care if they merged servers in the crappy "beta" stage? I'm pretty sure everybody knows the game sucks. lol

I run a single pearl LS, dosent matter where we decided to go, my core group would follow. dosent make sense for it to be an issue. get your RL freinds on the same LS, if they decide against or Your LS decides against it then you decide wich is more important, keep a LS in a game you like or stay on a server your friend is on, crying about having to make a hard decision is not only stupid but now complicates an otherwise simple process because the majority of players dont want to have to make a decision.... wise man once said, "want in one hand and piss in the other , see wich fills faster"

oh and if your bored with the game and find you cant get a group for events or xp party or w/e outa your LS, we are on mostly from 3pm - 3am est if that meshes well with you and your cool with exlusive linkshell status, send me a tell around those times /t aceofspades aircav im not looking to convince anyone to join , either you want in or you dont, dosent matter what you have to offer, our LS likely already has it or better, we are here to help casual/serious gamers to realize their potential. must be willing to put in work for the LS and realize all LS events take priority over any other event. If called you must show. and this is not a ls for slackers, leechers , or elietest. our LS is like a team and thats how we like it.

Server merge is never a good thing for any MMORPG game. If it severe enough it can very well usher either the game shutting down (there have been games that went directly from P2P to shutting down or going to F2P). Just throwing randomized comments such as "Well I have seen new players" or "I think population has increased the last several months since a few patches ago" rarely hold any water. This may be considering shocking to some as some have said in the past that FFXIV will "never" go F2P. Never say never.


(I will break up this post in 3 parts):


http://www.videogamer.com/pc/ff14/news/how_final_fantasy_xiv_plans_to_win_back_its_audience.html


Granted I am sure they are double and triple timing on Version 2.0. But I think (at least their financial division) have already started doing some extensive forecasting in case Version 2.0 does not survive the fallout. Remember there are many critical components/areas that are needed for the version to succeed. I will cover only on 2.


I. Version 2.0 has to be released in an immaculate/pristine state and has to be well received overall. This isn't 2002 where it only came out in Japan (in reference to XI) when news traveled much slower. These days with the various forms of communication and how things are translated within 48 hours or less (regardless if it is German, Korean, Japanese, etc.) news will get out quickly on how well or how poorly it did. Average will not cut it. Above average will not cut it.


II. The community. This is a key component on why almost every MMORPG fails to almost never been able to gather a substantial amount of returning players and keep them for the long run (directly connected to a bad release/launch). Remember on all the fan sites as well as when the official forums opened its doors and how many frustrated players were told to go back to WOW or told to go back to FFXI. Well guess what even if the white knights consider them as "undesirables" or "mouth breathers" etc. the company needs them and they (those players that left) are heavily centralized as to why this Version was done. In part to be able to sustain the P2P model: there is no other way. The diehard fans alone cannot sustain this flagship title. As unforgiving the MMO community is even amongst the fans, there will have to be substantial evidence that Square Enix can show that this is the game you want to play and eventually pay.


III. The 2 questions (referring to the free to play comment)


Q: We're seeing so many free-to-play titles do well after adopting the model. What is the incentive behind returning to the subscription model?


"I do think creating a hybrid from different business models is an interesting proposition, and this may be something we investigate further down the line."


Q: Would you ever consider embracing a non-subscription model in the future or is that not feasible now?


"Of course I am very interested in F2P as an alternative business plan, and I will continue to look into it. However adopting a F2P model means changing certain aspects of the game design in order to fit to the model since the prices customers have to pay for F2P are different to those they pay for subscription-based games. Therefore, if we do decide to change the business model in the future, it will also be necessary for us to adjust the game design so that it works accordingly."


Chances are if Version 2.0 only ends up being average or above average it probably won't make the cut. According to Wada for FFXI they had over "200,000 subscribers to Final Fantasy XI, allowing the company to break even and start making a profit." Chances are FFXIV will need 250k or 300k minimum to break that even point. They may end up using various degrees of the F2P model if things don't pan out 6 months after Version 2.0's release.


Funny how from the April 2011 interview with Gama Sutra Yoshida said "And when the money stops flowing, the development teams have to make their development team sizes smaller, which means they can't get enough content for the fixes, or they have to go to a different payment model like free-to-play." This was in regards to the question on why western developers cannot recover from a bad launch.


If Version 2.0 fails there is no 1. Time traveling device 2. There will be no expansion pack 3. There will be no "Do not pass Go! Do not collect 200 dollars!" card 4. There will be no Version 3.0.


The ball is in your court Square Enix. And from the recent population numbers from all 3 major peak times, they have quite a few people to convince to come back.

Here are the populations from NA EU JP from a couple of days ago (This is usually unprecedented) for the JP community to take in roll calls for all 3 major peak times. Note that the asterisk after the server signifies that the most recent population number for those servers was between February 5th-7th. They used that last number and extrapolated that data since their server population has reached critically low numbers on some servers. This is part why the charts I posted previously have stopped updating. Chances are once the merge is done, they will be able to do daily roll calls instead of only a couple of times a week since 10 servers is much more manageable than 18.


One thing to consider here. The current average of JP log ins during weekday prime time is around 10k, for NA it is around 9k, for EU it is around 6k. Yoshida did say at one point that he wanted 1500-2000 people to be the optimum number of simultaneous log ins. However, if we take the JP population since it is the highest and divide by the "10" new servers that averages out to 1k only. So it seems (at least for now he chose a much more conservative number).


Probably he did this for 2 main reasons. 1. He is hoping that with update 1.21 several folks will return and stay. 2. He didn't want to use 5 servers (which was what I estimated to reach that initial range he gave) because it would of made the merge look much worse than what it is. Going from 18 to 5 is much more harsh than going down to 10. Had he gone with 5 he would of achieved an average within that range. Example: Had he gone with 5 servers (and using the same JP example of 10k) he would of averaged 2000 which would of been the upper limit.


Words Distribution Reference During Weekdays JP
I used a period here to line them up.


ALL　 .JP　 .EN　.FR　DE　
1035　862　140　40　07　Selbina
.860　740　112　03　02　Gysahl
.741　675　074　01　02　Cornelia
.761　675　092　00　00　Figaro
.676　589　075　11　02　Mysidia
.650　477　139　03　38　Lindblum
.550　429　107　07　03　Kashuan
.510　424　081　05　02　Trabia
.551　424　121　08　03　Saronia
.546　427　133　13　09　Fabul
.541　408　132　04　04　Besaid
.517　462　051　01　05　Istory
.439　365　070　05　03　Palamecia
.393　345　049　01　00　Melmond
.431　298　123　15　06　Rabanastre
.342　201　137　14　05　Wutai
.334　217　109　08　04　Bodhum
.355　319　031　03　02　Karnak


Words Distribution Reference During Weekdays NA


ALL　 .JP　 .EN　.FR　DE　
895　563　324　25　04　Selbina
651　550　103　00　00　Gysahl
620　502　122　01　00　Cornelia
700　486　208　03　00　Figaro
590　444　152　02　01　Mysidia
528　274　244　03　13　Lindblum*
482　310　177　02　00　Kashuan
479　296　176　03　02　TrabiA
565　321　243　06　03　Saronia
485　257　222　05　04　Fabul
580　248　337　02　02　Besaid
398　273　122　01　07　Istory
350　203　149　03　02　Palamecia*
313　217　098　01　01　Melmond*
465　166　300　12　06　Rabanastre*
400　142　258　03　01　Wutai*
324　165　146　10　02　Bodhum*
269　202　063　04　02　Karnak


Words Distribution Reference During Weekdays EU


ALL　.JP　.EN　.FR　DE
644　276　282　85　12　Selbina
289　181　108　02　02　Gysahl
291　175　101　14　02　Cornelia
305　171　130　04　03　Figaro
390　191　178　20　04　Mysidia
518　167　277　05　85　Lindblum*
369　145　197　15　09　Kashuan
287　114　156　13　07　Trabia
392　145　215　21　14　Saronia
366　117　220　14　16　Fabul
430　107　320　06　09　Besaid
234　126　100　05　09　Istory
206　067　124　12　03　Palamecia*
205　100　100　03　03　Melmond*
377　080　263　30　10　Rabanastre*
350　048　279　26　10　Wutai*
272　062　195　10　03　Bodhum*
173　101　065　07　03　Karnak

My friends are in different LS' due to one game being social another being endgame, people like to maximize their end game content, during their most active times, my EU friends while still in my social LS, do events with us casually, but mostly stick to an EU shell due to fact the EU shell is way more active during their play time.

yall realize if the EU shells cordinated they couldve all chose the same server and would have benfited most from the original plan. now thanks to a bunch of crybabbys patch will likely be delayed and you no longer get a choice.... just saying, its not that big a deal and if your endgame pearl gose to a diffrent server then your social then either join a new social or new endgame, they both exist in all servers at all times

Except they are going to do it. They are going to change the rules of the industry and make the biggest video game come back of all time. If the current progress is any indication, the impossible has already happens once already.


;)

Merger decided :D

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/topics/detail?id=279aad49deef5aa27fe0a464fc3eafc6f18a2f52

Hello to our new friends from Kashuan :)

Hello from Kashuan xD General feeling in Kashuan atm is that we can't wait to meet Trabia ..yay!

<3

Hyperion!!!!

I'm so pleased they threw us a great FFVIII reference.

Server naming has been a success.

I knew selbina was one of the largest but not large enough that it didn't need to be merged. Maybe the named attracted fellow XI fans

I think yoshi-p said that that why we don't need to be merged there a lot of players at any giving hour :)